Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am in furious agreement with the good member for Chisholm when she says that it should not matter what your postcode is to get access to health services. One-hundred per cent—the member for Chisholm is absolutely right. But the trouble is that it doesn't ring true. The trouble is that this Labor government has not done what it says it was going to do when it comes to bulk-billing or access and availability of health services. In fact, it's been an abysmal, dismal failure.

Bulk-billing rates have gone from 88 per cent to 77 per cent. That's an 11 per cent drop. It doesn't matter how those members opposite colour it, how they argue it or how often they say that they are doing something. It doesn't matter how often that is the case; saying it doesn't make it true. Bulk-billing rates have dropped.

What did we see when somebody complained about this in the media to the health minister from the leafy suburbs of Adelaide? He said, 'Well, if you can't get a bulk-billing doctor, pick up the phone and ring another one.' That might be well and good in Adelaide. It doesn't cut it in regional Australia. In some communities in regional Australia you're lucky if you've got a doctor at all, let alone trying to phone for another doctor to get an appointment. In country Australia it shouldn't be the case that, when in pain, catch the plane. You should be able to have access and availability of a doctor when you need it, but the difficulty is that we don't.

Thank goodness we've got the Murray-Darling Medical Schools Network, which was set up and established by a coalition government—a coalition government which recognised that regional Australians have health issues too. This government does not provide equity for postcodes when it comes to health provision. We see that with the urgent care clinics. I hear the member for Lyne all the time going on about Taree. Taree and a whole host of other regional centres don't have those regional aftercare clinics, those emergency care clinics, and that's just one point. When it comes to bulk-billing and a whole myriad of other health access services, they are just not there. The access is missing.

Then we have the member for Macquarie moving this motion. It's true that, over the last election period when everyone was trying to win power, the Prime Minister said on no less than 71 occasions: 'It's okay, just produce your Medicare card. That will get you by.' It's not true, and it doesn't matter how often he says it. It doesn't matter how often he said it then, and it doesn't matter how often he says it at the dispatch box now. The services aren't available and, if they are, you've got to pay through the nose for it.

It is all well and good for those Labor seats or those marginal seats that Labor wants to win to add to its majority to get those clinics, but in regional Australia, where people matter too, they're missing out, and that's not good enough. That's not fair, and they're not convinced by the Prime Minister, the health minister or anybody else saying that there is equity in postcodes when it comes to health services, because there is not. There simply is not, and regional people are suffering as a result—regional people who already have lower longevity and, unfortunately, have more cancers and that type of thing. They are going without, and I just despair when I see so many Labor members getting up and hear them reading the talking points that they've been given. It doesn't matter how convincingly they say it; it doesn't make it true.

We do need more bulk-billing. We do need more access to better health services and care. We particularly need it in regional Australia—in the Northern Territory, in the Riverina or wherever it might be. Just because a motion might be on the books, that doesn't mean to say it's right or true.

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